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John Kuntz’s My Life with the Kringle Kult
BY LIZA WEISSTUCH
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My Life with the Kringle Kult
By John Kuntz. Directed by Dani Snyder. Set by Jenna McFarland. Costumes by Nora Hyland. Lighting by Jeff Brewer. With John Kuntz, Laura Given Napoli, and Rick Park. Presented by Boston Theatre Works at the Boston Center for the Arts through December 13.
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Christmas would be glitch-free in Santa’s toy-and-tree-adorned workshop if the jolly man’s little helpers weren’t psychotic. In the world premiere of John Kuntz’s My Life with the Kringle Kult, the first commissioned play by Boston Theatre Works, every elf must sign a contract that includes, among its many stipulations, liquidation of all assets to Santa and must follow the tenets of Kringlism in the hope of achieving the ultimate honor: "infinite embrace with Santa." As explained by Twinkle Kringle, whom Laura Given Napoli plays as a perky, squeaky-clean-spirited creature plucked from a Disney World parade who’s prone to bouts of Valley Girl vulgarity, the jolly fellow is a hedonistic disciple of Barry White who summons elves to "tangle in a sensual orgy of sweat, cookie crumbs, and long white facial hair." The mere thought is enough to set off alarms of lust for any lonely, devoted pixie. Makes perfect sense, right? A cult of nymphs take a vow of celibacy and surrender personal will to a being of unfathomable power who, as Twinkle giddily pipes, "suffers the sins of naughtiness so we can be free and jolly." Did I mention that he resides behind closed doors and communicates through his top subordinate, Karl Kringle, a puckish sprite embodied by a cranked-up Kuntz? Okay, so "sense" is the wrong classification. It’s more that the premise provides a launch pad for nonsense of screwball proportions. After a none-too-riveting foray into dark, plot-driven comedy with Jump Rope (which was produced last year by NextStages), Kuntz returns to the irreverent zaniness seeped in bawdiness that marked his earlier solo shows. But it’s sugar-rush comedy: good for instantly gratifying laughs that ultimately leave you hungry for substantial nourishment. That’s not to say there’s no plot here, but the chief purpose of the narrative is to function as a framework into which Kuntz crams Saturday Night Live–esque musical spoofs, farcical, vaudeville-tinged chase scenes, and goofy dream sequences. Through all the comic dross and Dani Snyder’s cartoonishly choreographed direction, we hear the playwright chiseling the warning that society is so immersed in self-interest and debauchery that the spirit of giving has been reduced to a sham that sullies even innocent childhood emblems of the season. From the opening, when Twinkle welcomes us with an orientation to Kringletown, the play is a self-aware, campy escapade that at moments careers into the junkyard of the contrived. Fortunately, individual elements work like gangbusters, from Kuntz’s salvo of linguistic winks (a wimpy sprite is a "Noel coward"; Santa knows everything you do because he has "Xmas-ray vision") to Twinkle’s repartee with the audience to the all-too-easy incorporation of cheesy ’80s-music slam-dance sessions. Witness the interlude in which Kuntz, still brandishing curly-toed elfin footwear, emerges in a velvet-collar jacket over a frilled shirt to croon an Elvis rendition of "Blue Christmas" as a disconsolate Twinkle tends to her suddenly unresponsive companion, a giant ball of belly-button lint. Although Linty may spark grotesque fascination for some, its role is eclipsed by the mere presence of Baroness Tinsel Von Shatzdoodle. Taking a hilarious Harvey Fierstein–inspired turn, the heavily powdered Rick Park flounces into the Kringle compound sporting a get-up of sequins and gold lamé and an arsenal of anatomy gags to sign up with the Santa sect and seduce the sexually frustrated Karl. Each move is a cog in the machine of her strategy as undercover reporter to blow the lid off the suspicious ring and write a "scathing exposé" of the inner workings of Santa’s workshop. But satires have little bite if the playwright isn’t chomping hard on something in the world outside the theater. Sure, we get predictable pokes at politicians and the media’s carnival quality, but there’s a sober point skulking at the core — I’m just not sure it’s one that Kuntz intended. The Kringle compound bears an uncanny resemblance to the Neverland ranch. What other figure of boundless renown can you think of with legions of young devotees toward whom his intentions are pure — on the surface?
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